STOP ISOLATING PIERCE!!!

[Barstool Blues]

I'll never understand why this is one of the Celtics main strategies. Pierce is not the same player he used to be and hasn't been for a couple years. The guy was never very quick to begin with, but his craftiness made up for his limited athleticism (at least compared to other sf's), but now he has little to no quickness at all left and when they ISO him he just takes a moronic jumper/fade away with a man all over him...is this really the plays the Celtics want?...seriously? Pierce can obviously shoot so why not set some screens for him or try to get him some easy looks? It has to be the most awful offensive strategy when they start to repeatedly go to a Pierce Iso...

[ValuedCeltic]

Did you see the game at all today? Almost everytime we iso'd paul he scored/drew a foul or got an assist.

[exculpatory]

I'll never understand why this is one of the Celtics main strategies. Pierce is not the same player he used to be and hasn't been for a couple years. The guy was never very quick to begin with, but his craftiness made up for his limited athleticism (at least compared to other sf's), but now he has little to no quickness at all left and when they ISO him he just takes a moronic jumper/fade away with a man all over him...is this really the plays the Celtics want?...seriously? Pierce can obviously shoot so why not set some screens for him or try to get him some easy looks? It has to be the most awful offensive strategy when they start to repeatedly go to a Pierce Iso...

Another Pierce underappreciator. Perfect. I love having you here.

And a great observation. Thanks.

Try watching most of the games.

That is why he shot over 50% in this game with 24 points (and why he is shooting 47% from the field this year) (and 47% from 3) - all those damn constant ISOs. Actually, he mixes the ISOs (which he shoots very well still) with almost every other shot imaginable - 3s, taking it to the hoop for "and 1s", etc. That is why he will pass 20K points this year.

And he has lost NONE of his skills.

We lost this game tonight because the team played like crap and Nowitzki was impossible.

Keep on posting. I love your basketball insight.

[BRUNiNHO91]

That's been P's game ever since he was a rookie. That's our best chance at scoring IMO. Or at least the most reliable source of scoring we have at the moment...

[GuyClinch]

Well FWIW I think Rondo does a rather poor job of involving Pierce in plays. He seems to avoid passing to him out there - preferring to set up Ray or Perkins or the other guys. I imagine its not like a personal thing its just that Paul can set up his own shot. But I like to see Rondo try to involve him more. So despite the fact a hater came up with this idea there is probably some truth to it.. Paul should be more integrated into the offense if Rondo is going to control it..

[Al-Haqq]

This topic frustrates me only because I have been advocating more iso plays and/or more Pierce dominated plays because it effing works!

We NEED to play Pierce more iso plays ... thing is, if he doesn't score he sets up a play.

I cannot express how much frustration I have when we struggle offensively and then we go to Pierce and he says *screw it* time to play. He scores or makes an assist or creates chances for others.

Remember against the Hawks in ATL? We finally start going to Pierce and he almost wins it by himself.

Remember against the Bulls in BOS? 3rd Q Pierce gets the ball more and starts scoring.

Actually I'll be back in a few weeks with a video analysis to show why going to Pierce works for us!

We had no chance against the Cavs and the Pistons until Pierce starts getting the ball heavily [08 reference].

The fact that Pierce takes 12 shots in Doc's system is a credit to his leadership and selflessness play, but also how badly we're under-utilising Pierce.

He needs to be taking 15 FGA min!

KG Pierce Rondo - those 3 we need for a ring, but play through Pierce and KG offensively. Ray is a compliment player and Perk cleans up anything that goes astray.

[Kaykoose]

I agree with Al-Haqq in the sense that Pierce should be taking more shots. While their struggles of late have been mainly due to poor effort on the defensive end, I think Pierce is hurting the Celtics with his passive offense. Ray too for that matter. These guys should both be scoring a lot more with Kevin out, but they aren't taking enough field goals to do so. I think they could both average well over 20 points a game on efficient shooting if they wanted. It could be Doc's system though, or perhaps I'm overrating Pierce and Ray.

[sully00]

It is a double edged sword at the moment.

Pierce is the only consistent offensive weapon. But Rondo is useless offensively without the ball in his hands and everyone else in this current incarnation stands around waiting for Rondo to find them or for Paul to shoot.

While running iso plays for Paul is great when he can go one on one it makes it easy for teams to disrupt and stop our offense if that is what we are banking on.

But the bigger issue is that this was a team that was built for depth and has lost it. Our bench can't do anything right now they scored 13 points last night.

You tell me which one doesn't fit Jamal Crawford, Jason Terry, Lamar Odom, Manu Ginobli, Eddie freaking House.

Things are going to be better when we are at full strength but House is dependent on Daniels to be effective. Davis will get more effective but he is putting up 13/10 per 36 right now he isn't going to give this team much more than that.

The Cav's and Magic aren't much better on the bench than us with Delonte and Reddick and it shows, but I would probably take either of them over Eddie or TA. Obviously when we shift Wallace back to the bench it gets better but we are going to continue to struggle against teams that go to their bench and find more scoring and we go to ours and help them score.

[tombattor]

It is a double edged sword at the moment.

Pierce is the only consistent offensive weapon. But Rondo is useless offensively without the ball in his hands and everyone else in this current incarnation stands around waiting for Rondo to find them or for Paul to shoot.

While running iso plays for Paul is great when he can go one on one it makes it easy for teams to disrupt and stop our offense if that is what we are banking on.

But the bigger issue is that this was a team that was built for depth and has lost it. Our bench can't do anything right now they scored 13 points last night.

You tell me which one doesn't fit Jamal Crawford, Jason Terry, Lamar Odom, Manu Ginobli, Eddie freaking House.

Things are going to be better when we are at full strength but House is dependent on Daniels to be effective. Davis will get more effective but he is putting up 13/10 per 36 right now he isn't going to give this team much more than that.

The Cav's and Magic aren't much better on the bench than us with Delonte and Reddick and it shows, but I would probably take either of them over Eddie or TA. Obviously when we shift Wallace back to the bench it gets better but we are going to continue to struggle against teams that go to their bench and find more scoring and we go to ours and help them score.

You are right on the money about the Pierce/Rondo thing. But IMO, there is a guy who can change all that in times of injury. Rasheed. Sheed is pretty effective in the post. As we saw last night, the Mavs had no answer for Sheed in the post when he camped down there and it gave the Celtics a point of attack on offense. Once he was out of the game, we lost our offensive rhythm and kept going back to everyone standing around waiting for PP to do something.

[irie]

Pierce basically gets taken out of games when he isn't able to create his own shot. He is good at spot up, trailing 3s but otherwise he has to create everything himself. Without Pierce isos, you're taking away arguably our best player.